It's only natural that the discussion around and about the distribution of prizemoney for The International 2014 appeared once again. It always surfaces everytime the event happens and it's not different right now. Maybe it is a little different because the current prizepool is a monstrous $6,192,668 by the time I'm writing it.
I'm not going to write here how the scene would benefit if TI4 manages to become less top heavy, because it's so damn obvious and because there are countless practical and pragmatical examples of it in different sports leagues. It's what's going to happen if Dota 2 pretends to have a competitive field for teams to battle. What I'm going to address is a specific argument that is floating around this discussion. One that I think it's repugnant and must be addressed. One that is ignorant of DotA's history as a competitive game.
The argument says that rewarding teams that didn't get top positions at The International is bad because it turns the competition into a charity event. The core of the argument understands that only the best teams should be rewarded, so it doesn't make any sense to reward those who didn't get to Top 8. If that was the case, teams would be content with just being at The International.
Once again, I'm not going to tackle the economics here, because a single glance on the prize breakdown of any sane and serious sports league in the world can do that for me. What is really frustrating is this notion that teams would settle with being 15th, 16th because they're getting money. Apparently, if you reward them for just being there, you're not rewarding competitiveness and thus are damaging the tournament as a whole, because teams wouldn't need to play hard to get money. It's frustrating because it fails to understand what competition is. It understands that the drive to compete comes only from the prizepool, that teams only compete because of the chance to win money. While that's not entirely false, it's also not entirely true. To think that teams that are competitive enough to get to TI4 would settle for last is absurd. Any true competitor hates losing, be it losing at Dota or losing in a tooth-brushing contest.
We all too easily falsify what competition is in that we throw it together with predatory competition, where the aim is to destroy and pillage the opponent, the winner taking everything and the loser nothing. In true competitions, however, the striving opponents elevate each other. They need each other in order to reach higher skies. While competitors are fighting, each carries the other out of and beyond itself. The harder the competition by itself intensifies, the more the competitors release themselves in the inner fervor of the game. The harder they fight, the more they belong to each other. They need the opponent in order to reach excellency. They can't eliminate the opponent because in doing so they're giving up of that person that can help him reach higher skies. It is for a reason that rivalries are a big deal in sports, because having a true rival means having someone that you can compete with for the sake of competitiveness. Of course it's important to reward the winner, but there's no competition possible without at least two players (in the case of TI4, 16 teams, or 19 if we count the Wildcard teams).
To suggest that money is the only drive that moves competition is not only not understanding what competition is, it's also ignoring the history of a game where players fought for fame and glory with almost no money on the line. This is the root of Dota as a game and this is what made The International possible. This insane prizepool only exists because competition is it own drive (and because of a well planned project by Valve, this must also be stated). That said, we should be aware of this confusion between competition and predatory competition. It's better for the scene that teams thrive and flourish and it's bad for the scene when teams disappear. I think one way to start fixing that is finally recognizing (and rewarding accordingly) that being one of the 16 (or 19) teams on The International is a big deal.
Also significant though, is that expanding the prize money to 16 teams means that many more teams could be fighting very hard just to even get into the top 16 in the first place, because simply getting there means your team is able to survive and be stable. The fact that of the top sixteen teams, 8 might not even exist by the next TI because they go bankrupt is kind of absurd, especially considering how difficult even getting into the top 16 is in the first place.
The argument says that rewarding teams that didn't get top positions at The International is bad because it turns the competition into a charity event. The core of the argument understands that only the best teams should be rewarded, so it doesn't make any sense to reward those who didn't get to Top 8. If that was the case, teams would be content with just being at The International.
What blows my mind about this mindset is that it seriously denigrates the competition required to get to The International. The teams chosen aren't chosen out of a hat or what have you, they're chosen because they've proven themselves time and time again to be the best. "The sixteen best teams from around the world" is the usual refrain about TI - by that logic, the teams present should be rewarded, at least in some part.
It's also pretty disgusting to say that someone would be "content" with 15/16th because they're guaranteed something. I mean yeah, $30k would be nice, but if you think I wouldn't bust my ass to try and make that $30k into $60k or $3m or whatever, you're mental.
Well, I don't think that teams that came top16-9 just were there, because they had to perform for the whole year(or half), they had to qualify to win their spot and etc. They didn't just appear there, they fought for that invite, to be a part of TI and I think they should be rewarded with some money for it.
Including the wildcards there are 19 teams (11 invites, 4 qualified teams, 4 "wildcard" teams)
Also, nobody wants a winner takes all tournament (lol that SC2 joke). On the other hand, the idea that MUFC 0-14 @TI3 "sharpened their opponents" is of course a fallacy. ("As steel sharpens steel, so one man sharpens another")
Regardless, the real argument still isn't "well the bottom teams suck so they don't deserve money" it is "well there should be more to the scene than TI and having TI award every attendee as much money as winning almost any other tournament would award artificially stratifies the scene and turns into valve subsidizing the scene instead of promoting it". Most dota fans do NOT want an LCS situation where "These teams get paid a livable salary by the publisher/developer to play the game and everybody else doesn't" but awarding even 1% of the winnings to each team results in a $60,000+ "sponsorship" to the attending teams.
That said, I like the "extend the prize pool to top 12" plan. With something around 8M likely as a final prize pool, there's definitely enough money to go around.
I also find the argument of it being an invitational rather weak. This is a unique situation different from any other invitational tournament. If I hosted an invitational tomorrow in StarCraft not a single one of the players invited would have planned their year in order to be a part of that. Doing that and giving prize money to the last place finisher would basically just be handing out money. However invites at The International come through a grueling year long qualifying process. Every team has its eye on The International and getting invited for it is the reward for hard work and world class play in countless tournaments. Basically the whole year every tournament a team plays leads to that moment of being invited to The International. Having an issue with prize money for the lower spots because they didn't have to work for it seems absurd.
Before the tournament, each of the 32 entrants will receive US$1.5 million for preparation costs. Once at the tournament, the prize money will be distributed as follows: US$8 million – To each team eliminated at the group stage (16 teams) US$9 million – To each team eliminated in the round of 16 (8 teams) US$14 million – To each team eliminated in the quarter-finals (4 teams) US$20 million – Fourth placed team US$22 million – Third placed team US$25 million – Runner up US$35 million – Winner
Definitely agree that every invited team at the international played their asses off to earn an invite and deserve to be there. Na'Vi are probably the closest to a pure "invite" this year.
I don't want to just give money to teams that clearly didn't deserve to be there *cough* MUFC *cough* I think paying teams for wins would be sensible so all teams get a bonus of the prizepool for their wins in the group-stages.
I just can not agree with giving money to teams that show up and lose fucking everything, because said team clearly didn't deserve to be in the money any more than let's say the play-in teams. I mean if we want to pay the teams for working hard and making it to seattle then surely we should pay the play-in teams too, right? They need to spend time practicing and so on just as much as the team that makes it trough the play-in and becomes one of the 16 teams. (No i don't actually think play-in teams that don't make it should be paid, i think teams should be rewarded for playing well at TI)
If we paid teams for getting wins in the group stages this rewards teams that play well and actually create entertainment for the viewers, and punishes teams that clearly weren't supposed to be at the event at all. I mean let's say we had a team in the scene that was all legacy and hadn't actually performed at all leading up to TI, and they were giving a direct invite simply because of said legacy. If they show up and lose everything, they definitely wouldn't be deserving of any money just for being there. That would be insulting to teams in the play-in that might've put up a much more serious fight in the tournament but just barely got eliminated.
TI shouldn't be there to allow a player to be competitive, it shouldn't be what the scenes revolves around. It shouldn't be there to make sure all the teams can remain competitive, because that would mean we have a scene that can't survive without TI which would be super fucking bad for the scene as a whole.
On May 22 2014 02:21 Unleashing wrote: I don't want to just give money to teams that clearly didn't deserve to be there *cough* MUFC *cough*
So all the wins and achievements MUFC had prior to TI, which earned them an invite spot were nothing? They did not get an invite just for fun. They got an invite because there were considered one of the top teams in the world.
Lets say EG will end up 0-16 or 1-15 at this years TI. Does it mean they clearly did not deserve to be there?
On May 22 2014 01:42 Sn0_Man wrote: Regardless, the real argument still isn't "well the bottom teams suck so they don't deserve money" it is "well there should be more to the scene than TI and having TI award every attendee as much money as winning almost any other tournament would award artificially stratifies the scene and turns into valve subsidizing the scene instead of promoting it". Most dota fans do NOT want an LCS situation where "These teams get paid a livable salary by the publisher/developer to play the game and everybody else doesn't" but awarding even 1% of the winnings to each team results in a $60,000+ "sponsorship" to the attending teams.
But isn't it... OUR money that would act as the subsidy? Just because the publisher/developer is acting as the intermediary for the money that's going from us to the teams via the prize pool doesn't make it their money, just as if, colloquially speaking, I pay for a movie ticket with a debit card, it wasn't JP Morgan Chase that subsidized the movie studio but me. So in the case that all 16 teams get a prize, the publisher/developer isn't really paying the players a salary... we are. In fact, Valve can keep its original prize distribution exactly the same, and ours could in theory be completely flat across the teams*. Wouldn't this really be THE COMMUNITY paying the teams a flat (very high) salary to play the game? And would that really be so bad?
I feel that talking about Valve at all in terms of the prize pool is a misdirection of sorts, even if one made in good faith.
* I don't actually support a position this extreme, just illustrating the point.
I don't think the invitational argument is completely irrelevant, it is at least a little weird to have Valve pick participants and then pay them all out. It is, however, a mistake to assume that because of it being marginally unusual not paying some teams is then the best solution - TI works out in such a way that people almost universally agree on each invite. It's not like there are huge wildcards in there that don't deserve it, people almost without exception agree that the teams competing are there because they earned their spot and each year the number of teams who qualify in a more literal sense increases.
I honestly think the top-heavy prize structure even among the top 8 spots is a bigger issue than how many teams are paid overall though. I feel like people keep focusing on whether or not 16 deserve to be paid at all when the difference between 1st and 2nd last year was a difference of 28% of the total pool, its insane that second place was worth less than half of first. I agree with you it's the more obvious issue but no one is talking about it.
On May 22 2014 02:21 Unleashing wrote: I don't want to just give money to teams that clearly didn't deserve to be there *cough* MUFC *cough*
Do you realize that MUFC was beating Orange in tournaments at the time they were invited/"qualified"? There's many cases of underperforming teams/players in every competition. That doesn't mean professional teams should go unrewarded for being the best of their region and basically guarantee their disbandment after the tournament ends.
I updated the thread with the prizepool breakdown of different sports leagues. Take a look at them if you have the curiosity. It makes you question even the notion that first place should get 50% of the total prizepool.
On May 22 2014 02:32 Noya wrote: Do you realize that MUFC was beating Orange in tournaments at the time they were invited/"qualified"? There's many cases of underperforming teams/players in every competition. That doesn't mean professional teams should go unrewarded for being the best of their region and basically guarantee their disbandment after the tournament ends.
Or hell, it could just be an off week. I mean, yeah, the timing sucks, but if you claim you've never had a few days/a week where you played some of the shittiest dota of your life, well, you're either lying or way more consistent than anyone, pro-teams included.
On May 22 2014 02:43 shostakovich wrote: I updated the thread with the prizepool breakdown of different sports leagues. Take a look at them if you have the curiosity. It makes you question even the notion that first place should get 50% of the total prizepool.
I agree, 50% to first is too high for a tournament with a prize pool like this, no team needs ~$3-4M. I'd like to see redistribution of the revenue among top8 or top12 teams. I don't want top16 distribution outside of something like "every round robin win is worth $X,000" or similar.
On May 22 2014 02:32 Noya wrote: Do you realize that MUFC was beating Orange in tournaments at the time they were invited/"qualified"? There's many cases of underperforming teams/players in every competition. That doesn't mean professional teams should go unrewarded for being the best of their region and basically guarantee their disbandment after the tournament ends.
Or hell, it could just be an off week. I mean, yeah, the timing sucks, but if you claim you've never had a few days/a week where you played some of the shittiest dota of your life, well, you're either lying or way more consistent than anyone, pro-teams included.
Don't care. This shit ain't communism. Off weeks happen to everybody for sure, and everybody faces the consequences for that. Professional sports is about winning.
On May 22 2014 03:07 Sn0_Man wrote: Don't care. This shit ain't communism. Off weeks happen to everybody for sure, and everybody faces the consequences for that. Professional sports is about winning.
Of course it is not. Most of the teams worked hard to get an invite.
On May 22 2014 02:43 shostakovich wrote: I updated the thread with the prizepool breakdown of different sports leagues. Take a look at them if you have the curiosity. It makes you question even the notion that first place should get 50% of the total prizepool.
That's a bit biased. You could add a few of several examples of leagues that don't distribute prize money to everyone. Football Championship League in England only pays 1st and 2nd. Brazillian Beach volleyball pays 16 out of over a hundred of people/teams playing the circuit. In the NBA only teams that get to the playoffs get prize money. Even in your own example of the Champion's League, only teams in the Playoff Rounds get prize money, and a good number of teams are eliminated before it reaches that point.
And some of these sports comparisons are quite bad. World Cup prize money doesn't even go to the players afaik, some tournaments have a quite harsh qualification process, one does not simply qualify for the Champions League. And almost every single one has either a ranking system, like Tennis, or a National tournament that is used for qualification tournaments. The biggest issue with TI is that invites can be a bit arbitrary. This year they were almost unanimous, but last year if EG was playing a bit better at the time of the invites, Dignitas/EG would have been a very hard choice. It already wasn't so easy. You put Valve in a position os basically deciding who receives a big chunk of money.
TI's format is moving in a direction that rewarding every team is becoming more reasonable, but as long as invites are arbitrary I don't see an issue with not paying the last 4 teams or something. But this idea some people have that every single healthy sports league pays every single team or even has a very broad prize distribution is plain bullshit. There are examples of both cases. And even when it happens, teams are more often than not able to live without the prize money. Winning La Liga gives you like 3-4 million, that's a small fraction of what Messi makes in a month. Teams live on sponsorship deals, TV rights, ticket sales, etc. When you make 150m on TV rights, a fair comparions would be paying the last places in TI 100 bucks. The prize money is a drop in the bucket for big Football teams. The idea of supporting players with prize money is quite unique to ESPORTS, which makes most comparisons pretty bad.
On May 22 2014 02:43 shostakovich wrote: I updated the thread with the prizepool breakdown of different sports leagues. Take a look at them if you have the curiosity. It makes you question even the notion that first place should get 50% of the total prizepool.
I agree, 50% to first is too high for a tournament with a prize pool like this, no team needs ~$3-4M. I'd like to see redistribution of the revenue among top8 or top12 teams. I don't want top16 distribution outside of something like "every round robin win is worth $X,000" or similar.
On May 22 2014 02:32 Noya wrote: Do you realize that MUFC was beating Orange in tournaments at the time they were invited/"qualified"? There's many cases of underperforming teams/players in every competition. That doesn't mean professional teams should go unrewarded for being the best of their region and basically guarantee their disbandment after the tournament ends.
Or hell, it could just be an off week. I mean, yeah, the timing sucks, but if you claim you've never had a few days/a week where you played some of the shittiest dota of your life, well, you're either lying or way more consistent than anyone, pro-teams included.
Don't care. This shit ain't communism. Off weeks happen to everybody for sure, and everybody faces the consequences for that. Professional sports is about winning.
the guy who scores a +20 at the masters still walks away with a nice bit of cash. Has nothing to do with communism, It has to do with showing respect to the best players the game has to offer and rewarding them for even being able to get there in the first place.
If the prize pool wasn't large enough to spread among 16 teams I would say top 8 is fine but it's clearly growing large enough to the point where the top 16 teams should all be rewarded just for either their amazing year and invite, or beating out all the other competition in their region and qualifying for the tournament. It's not spreading the wealth, it's giving money to people who have all earned it.
On May 22 2014 04:35 OmniEulogy wrote: the guy who scores a +20 at the masters still walks away with a nice bit of cash. Has nothing to do with communism, It has to do with showing respect to the best players the game has to offer and rewarding them for even being able to get there in the first place.
I mean the masters almost certainly doesn't pay for his flights and hotel etc.
On May 22 2014 04:35 OmniEulogy wrote: If the prize pool wasn't large enough to spread among 16 teams I would say top 8 is fine but it's clearly growing large enough to the point where the top 16 teams should all be rewarded just for either their amazing year and invite, or beating out all the other competition in their region and qualifying for the tournament. It's not spreading the wealth, it's giving money to people who have all earned it.
Why even hold a tournament? Just hand out wads of cash to whoever valve think deserve it because yay free money. Valve should obviously just pay all the top teams a salary because they deserve it for their amazing year, nothing could possibly be wrong with that.
I know thats not what you are saying but what you are advocating simply isn't what TI is.
It's also a matter of scale. How many players play a Grand Slam? How many professional tennis players exist in the whole wide world? It's like inviting just the top 4 Dota teams and paying prize money for every single one of them. Find an average professional tennis player, ranked like 600-700, and he will have made like 5k in prize money is a whole year.
no the sponsors do that for him, as well as pay him a ridiculous amount to come in last.
This tournament is very unique compared to others but ok let's go with what you're saying Sno.
I guess starladder is just an excuse for communism to take over DotA2... damn. Every team that went to compete at SL9 got money. What a charity case they are.
MLG also gave money to the 9 teams that went to compete there including Prettyboy Swag / eHug.who went 0-8. Communist organization clearly.
ESL One is going to be giving prize money to all 8 teams that will be attending that event...
The Summit, all 6 teams get money.
WPC - all 8 teams that qualify get money. Even the newly announced MarsTV DotA 2 league gives prize money to all competitors.
Good news is D2CL doesn't give all of the finalists money so you still have one premier tournament you can support!
Basically DotA2 is a communist plot and gives a lot of free hand outs in all the major tournaments...
Why do all of these organizers even hold tournaments if they are just going to give money to everybody who makes it into them through Invites and Qualifiers????
edit: if your reason for not liking it is because 'communism' or a "free" handout I'm just saying all of this makes that seem kind of silly unless you hate almost every major tournament that has happened recently.
On May 22 2014 04:33 SKC wrote:Teams live on sponsorship deals, TV rights, ticket sales, etc. When you make 150m on TV rights, a fair comparions would be paying the last places in TI 100 bucks. The prize money is a drop in the bucket for big Football teams. The idea of supporting players with prize money is quite unique to ESPORTS, which makes most comparisons pretty bad.
You mean Barcelona and Real Madrid lives on sponsorship deals, TV rights and ticket sales. They have more than 600 million euros invested in their teams, so the money coming from UCL prizepool surely isn't that important. But pick a team like Atletico Madrid, with a budget around 120 million euros. It gets just one Real Madrid player to almost get all the money invested in Atletico Madrid's squad. The money coming from UCL is ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT for them, exactly because they're not a Real Madrid or a Barcelona. Not every esports team is EG.
And I don't get why you're using this language that makes it sound that leveling the field is some act of charity. It's not about supporting the players, it's merely about recognizing that being a TI team is a big deal.
On one thing we can agree,: the process of selecting teams must improve. It's way better than last year, but there's still too many invited teams.
On May 22 2014 04:33 SKC wrote:Teams live on sponsorship deals, TV rights, ticket sales, etc. When you make 150m on TV rights, a fair comparions would be paying the last places in TI 100 bucks. The prize money is a drop in the bucket for big Football teams. The idea of supporting players with prize money is quite unique to ESPORTS, which makes most comparisons pretty bad.
You mean Barcelona and Real Madrid lives on sponsorship deals, TV rights and ticket sales. They have more than 600 million euros invested in their teams, so the money coming from UCL prizepool surely isn't that important. But pick a team like Atletico Madrid, with a budget around 120 million euros. It gets just one Real Madrid player to almost get all the money invested in Atletico Madrid's squad. The money coming from UCL is ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT for them, exactly because they're not a Real Madrid or a Barcelona. Not every esports team is EG.
And I don't get why you're using this language that makes it sound that leveling the field is some act of charity. It's not about supporting the players, it's merely about recognizing that being a TI team is a big deal.
On one thing we can agree,: the process of selecting teams must improve. It's way better than last year, but there's still too many invited teams.
That team with a budget of 120 million euros gets like 2m, probally less, euros from La Liga. Don't tell me prize money is a big part of his budget. He can't guarantee he will be part of every Champion's League. Even when he plays it, it's still a small fraction of his budget and he still gets more than it from TV rights. Atletico got 42m from domestic (not international) TV rights. The smallest amount a team in La Liga got was 12m, that's a lot more than the prize for first place and more than a decent run at UCL. These premium tournaments are important for these teams because they can increase their budget for that or the next year, but by no means necessary. Else they would all have died. Tell me how a team such as Granada can afford a 20m wage bill if they rely on prize money.
Also, I don't know where you got that I was talking about charity. My full post was exclusivelly on why the sports comparisons were bullshit, on how there are plenty of leagues that don't pay prize money for it, and how prize money isn't even that big of a deal of most of them. I also said that as a mostly invitational tournament, in my view it's fine not to pay the bottom teams. I also think it's fine to push the prize pool to more than 8 teams and to make it more level. And I also wouldn't be outraged if every team got paid, like some people are with them not getting paid.
My whole point was: A) Not paying bottom teams is better with the current format, B) These sports comparisons are bullshit as an argument for paying everyone.
On May 22 2014 01:42 Sn0_Man wrote: Regardless, the real argument still isn't "well the bottom teams suck so they don't deserve money" it is "well there should be more to the scene than TI and having TI award every attendee as much money as winning almost any other tournament would award artificially stratifies the scene and turns into valve subsidizing the scene instead of promoting it". Most dota fans do NOT want an LCS situation where "These teams get paid a livable salary by the publisher/developer to play the game and everybody else doesn't" but awarding even 1% of the winnings to each team results in a $60,000+ "sponsorship" to the attending teams.
But isn't it... OUR money that would act as the subsidy? Just because the publisher/developer is acting as the intermediary for the money that's going from us to the teams via the prize pool doesn't make it their money, just as if, colloquially speaking, I pay for a movie ticket with a debit card, it wasn't JP Morgan Chase that subsidized the movie studio but me. So in the case that all 16 teams get a prize, the publisher/developer isn't really paying the players a salary... we are. In fact, Valve can keep its original prize distribution exactly the same, and ours could in theory be completely flat across the teams*. Wouldn't this really be THE COMMUNITY paying the teams a flat (very high) salary to play the game? And would that really be so bad?
I feel that talking about Valve at all in terms of the prize pool is a misdirection of sorts, even if one made in good faith.
* I don't actually support a position this extreme, just illustrating the point.
Meh, I kinda disagree with this argument (though i can see where you are coming from).
Ultimately, all the money valve works with is OUR money, but the issue is how they choose to use OUR money. In effect, it really isn't our money once it leaves our hands and enter's valve's.
Valve is the one who determines how to use the money. They are the ones that determined a compendium should be made. They are the ones who determined that $2.50, not more or less (or any at all), should go to the prize pool. And they will determine how much should go to each teams.
On a different matter, saying that giving bottom teams money removes incentive is ridiculous and fails to consider the value of more money over less. People value more money then valuing less, and teams will have the incentive to take first place for more money rather than second for less, competitive utility aside. That's a stupid argument to make otherwise.
Ultimately, we are starting to reach the point where we Dota needs to start asking ourselves, how does the average top tier team make enough money to have their players live off it? Minus the top 4 teams, we still aren't there yet in the West.
@Omni I mean most of those organizations have to offer money to every team just to make attendance worth it, Previous starladders saw teams qualify for the LAN finals and no-show because unless they won outright they would lose money to attend. Even this year, the 7/8th place teams at starladder likely lost money attending even including the travel assistance (although I'd guess sponsors paid for it so w/e) whereas every team at TI is 100% covered.
Also none of those tournaments have 16 teams at the LAN finals. They all pay top 8 same as TI, also the scale of pay isn't even in the same order of magnitude for any of those tournaments. Beyond that, many of those tournaments are the "LAN finals" of a month(s) long event. TI is the tournament, not just the finals.
And lastly, Developer-funded tournaments have different rules and expectations when compared to third-party organized ones.
On May 22 2014 05:08 SKC wrote: That team with a budget of 120 million euros gets like 2m, probally less, euros from La Liga. Don't tell me prize money is a big part of his budget. He can't guarantee he will be part of every Champion's League. Even when he plays it, it's still a small fraction of his budget and he still gets more than it from TV rights. Atletico got 42m from domestic (not international) TV rights. The smallest amount a team in La Liga got was 12m, that's a lot more than the prize for first place and more than a decent run at UCL. These premium tournaments are important for these teams because they can increase their budget for that or the next year, but by no means necessary. Else they would all have died. Tell me how a team such as Granada can afford a 20m wage bill if they rely on prize money.
Also, I don't know where you got that I was talking about charity. My full post was exclusivelly on why the sports comparisons were bullshit, on how there are plenty of leagues that don't pay prize money for it, and how prize money isn't even that big of a deal of most of them. I also said that as a mostly invitational tournament, in my view it's fine not to pay the bottom teams. I also think it's fine to push the prize pool to more than 8 teams and to make it more level. And I also wouldn't be outraged if every team got paid, like some people are with them not getting paid.
My whole point was: A) Not paying bottom teams is better with the current format, B) These sports comparisons are bullshit as an argument for paying everyone.
Let's go by your numbers and say that Atletico got 43mi from domestic TV rights.
If they win UCF saturday, they'll make at least 31,400,000 million euros, not counting their wins and draws in the groupstage. If they lose, they'll make a mere 27,500,000mi. One team can manage to get 50,000,000 euros on UCF alone if they win everything like Bayern did. Now please explain to me how UCF prizepool is a small fraction of their budget. Basic math disagrees with you.
On May 22 2014 05:08 SKC wrote: That team with a budget of 120 million euros gets like 2m, probally less, euros from La Liga. Don't tell me prize money is a big part of his budget. He can't guarantee he will be part of every Champion's League. Even when he plays it, it's still a small fraction of his budget and he still gets more than it from TV rights. Atletico got 42m from domestic (not international) TV rights. The smallest amount a team in La Liga got was 12m, that's a lot more than the prize for first place and more than a decent run at UCL. These premium tournaments are important for these teams because they can increase their budget for that or the next year, but by no means necessary. Else they would all have died. Tell me how a team such as Granada can afford a 20m wage bill if they rely on prize money.
Also, I don't know where you got that I was talking about charity. My full post was exclusivelly on why the sports comparisons were bullshit, on how there are plenty of leagues that don't pay prize money for it, and how prize money isn't even that big of a deal of most of them. I also said that as a mostly invitational tournament, in my view it's fine not to pay the bottom teams. I also think it's fine to push the prize pool to more than 8 teams and to make it more level. And I also wouldn't be outraged if every team got paid, like some people are with them not getting paid.
My whole point was: A) Not paying bottom teams is better with the current format, B) These sports comparisons are bullshit as an argument for paying everyone.
Let's go by your numbers and say that Atletico got 43mi from domestic TV rights.
If they win UCF saturday, they'll make at least 31,400,000 million euros, not counting their wins and draws in the groupstage. If they lose, they'll make a mere 27,500,000mi. One team can manage to get 50,000,000 euros on UCF alone if they win everything like Bayern did. Now please explain to me how UCF prizepool is a small fraction of their budget. Basic math disagrees with you.
Winning UCF isn't a small fraction. But not every team can win the UCF. We are not talking about winners here. We are talking about the lowest positions on the table, and how some sports paying teams that lose every game makes it so TI should also do it. Or not. This is a one in a lifetime deal for atletico, sure it will be relevant today, but not last year and not next year. Teams cannot rely on prize money on football because overall it is a small fraction of their budget. Even Man U or Real will get a lot of money if they win the Champion's League. Doesn't mean they need to win, or even play it, to pay their bills. The "participation prize" is the analogue you tried to bring to Dota, not the first prize. We are talking about those 2m from playing in the playoffs (and some teams don't get even that). That is a drop in the bucket for any team. How many spanish teams will survive just fine without winning major bucks from UCL?
Winning TI is a big deal for the team that wins it as wel, but who cares, everybody knows it. Winning is a big deal in all sports. If we are comparing both scenes, in terms of money, winning TI is a much bigger deal than winning the Champions League. So nothing to complain about that, right? Noone will say the winner from TI doesn't win enough.
On May 22 2014 05:08 SKC wrote: That team with a budget of 120 million euros gets like 2m, probally less, euros from La Liga. Don't tell me prize money is a big part of his budget. He can't guarantee he will be part of every Champion's League. Even when he plays it, it's still a small fraction of his budget and he still gets more than it from TV rights. Atletico got 42m from domestic (not international) TV rights. The smallest amount a team in La Liga got was 12m, that's a lot more than the prize for first place and more than a decent run at UCL. These premium tournaments are important for these teams because they can increase their budget for that or the next year, but by no means necessary. Else they would all have died. Tell me how a team such as Granada can afford a 20m wage bill if they rely on prize money.
Also, I don't know where you got that I was talking about charity. My full post was exclusivelly on why the sports comparisons were bullshit, on how there are plenty of leagues that don't pay prize money for it, and how prize money isn't even that big of a deal of most of them. I also said that as a mostly invitational tournament, in my view it's fine not to pay the bottom teams. I also think it's fine to push the prize pool to more than 8 teams and to make it more level. And I also wouldn't be outraged if every team got paid, like some people are with them not getting paid.
My whole point was: A) Not paying bottom teams is better with the current format, B) These sports comparisons are bullshit as an argument for paying everyone.
Let's go by your numbers and say that Atletico got 43mi from domestic TV rights.
If they win UCF saturday, they'll make at least 31,400,000 million euros, not counting their wins and draws in the groupstage. If they lose, they'll make a mere 27,500,000mi. One team can manage to get 50,000,000 euros on UCF alone if they win everything like Bayern did. Now please explain to me how UCF prizepool is a small fraction of their budget. Basic math disagrees with you.
Winning UCF isn't a small fraction. But not every team can win the UCF. We are not talking about winners here. We are talking about the lowest positions on the table, and how some sports paying teams that lose every game makes it so TI should also do it. Or not. This is a one in a lifetime deal for atletico, sure it will be relevant today, but not last year and not next year. Teams cannot rely on prize money on football because overall it is a small fraction of their budget. Even Man U or Real will get a lot of money if they win the Champion's League. Doesn't mean they need to win, or even play it, to pay their bills. The "participation prize" is the analogue you tried to bring to Dota, not the first prize. We are talking about those 2m from playing in the playoffs (and some teams don't get even that). That is a drop in the bucket for any team. How many spanish teams will survive just fine without winning major bucks from UCL?
Winning TI is a big deal for the team that wins it as wel, but who cares, everybody knows it. Winning is a big deal in all sports. If we are comparing both scenes, in terms of money, winning TI is a much bigger deal than winning the Champions League. So nothing to complain about that, right? Noone will say the winner from TI doesn't win enough.
To teams like Arsenal and Fenerbahce it's probably true, because they're big teams. But when we talk about less proeminent teams that are trying to fight their way via playoffs, like, for example, FC Paços de Ferreira (from Portugal), PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (from Bulgaria) or even teams from Iceland, things change a lot because they're from smaller markets. To these teams, even 2,1mi euros (which is what they get by being part of the playoffs) is a big deal. I'm just trying to show that this money is indeed important to them and that not every team has a big chunk of their budget coming from TV rights. Because they have access to this money, they're able to build teams and and have a chance in the game. Football in Europe is top heavy (and corrupt as fuck), but the way UCF distribute their prizepool is not top heavy at all.
On May 22 2014 05:08 SKC wrote: That team with a budget of 120 million euros gets like 2m, probally less, euros from La Liga. Don't tell me prize money is a big part of his budget. He can't guarantee he will be part of every Champion's League. Even when he plays it, it's still a small fraction of his budget and he still gets more than it from TV rights. Atletico got 42m from domestic (not international) TV rights. The smallest amount a team in La Liga got was 12m, that's a lot more than the prize for first place and more than a decent run at UCL. These premium tournaments are important for these teams because they can increase their budget for that or the next year, but by no means necessary. Else they would all have died. Tell me how a team such as Granada can afford a 20m wage bill if they rely on prize money.
Also, I don't know where you got that I was talking about charity. My full post was exclusivelly on why the sports comparisons were bullshit, on how there are plenty of leagues that don't pay prize money for it, and how prize money isn't even that big of a deal of most of them. I also said that as a mostly invitational tournament, in my view it's fine not to pay the bottom teams. I also think it's fine to push the prize pool to more than 8 teams and to make it more level. And I also wouldn't be outraged if every team got paid, like some people are with them not getting paid.
My whole point was: A) Not paying bottom teams is better with the current format, B) These sports comparisons are bullshit as an argument for paying everyone.
Let's go by your numbers and say that Atletico got 43mi from domestic TV rights.
If they win UCF saturday, they'll make at least 31,400,000 million euros, not counting their wins and draws in the groupstage. If they lose, they'll make a mere 27,500,000mi. One team can manage to get 50,000,000 euros on UCF alone if they win everything like Bayern did. Now please explain to me how UCF prizepool is a small fraction of their budget. Basic math disagrees with you.
Winning UCF isn't a small fraction. But not every team can win the UCF. We are not talking about winners here. We are talking about the lowest positions on the table, and how some sports paying teams that lose every game makes it so TI should also do it. Or not. This is a one in a lifetime deal for atletico, sure it will be relevant today, but not last year and not next year. Teams cannot rely on prize money on football because overall it is a small fraction of their budget. Even Man U or Real will get a lot of money if they win the Champion's League. Doesn't mean they need to win, or even play it, to pay their bills. The "participation prize" is the analogue you tried to bring to Dota, not the first prize. We are talking about those 2m from playing in the playoffs (and some teams don't get even that). That is a drop in the bucket for any team. How many spanish teams will survive just fine without winning major bucks from UCL?
Winning TI is a big deal for the team that wins it as wel, but who cares, everybody knows it. Winning is a big deal in all sports. If we are comparing both scenes, in terms of money, winning TI is a much bigger deal than winning the Champions League. So nothing to complain about that, right? Noone will say the winner from TI doesn't win enough.
To teams like Arsenal and Fenerbahce it's probably true, because they're big teams. But when we talk about less proeminent teams that are trying to fight their way via playoffs, like, for example, FC Paços de Ferreira (from Portugal), PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (from Bulgaria) or even teams from Iceland, things change a lot because they're from smaller markets. To these teams, even 2,1mi euros (which is what they get by being part of the playoffs) is a big deal. I'm just trying to show that this money is indeed important to them and that not every team has a big chunk of their budget coming from TV rights. Because they have access to this money, they're able to build teams and and have a chance in the game. Football in Europe is top heavy (and corrupt as fuck), but the way UCF distribute their prizepool is not top heavy at all.
It's also the poorest example because of how gruosome the qualification process for UCL is. Even top teams fail to qualify ocasionally. The biggest thing people point out when they disagree with every team getting prize money is that teams are invited. The reason why these elite tournaments such a Grand Slams and Champions League spread the money so much is because it's so hard to play it. National tournaments have pretty lousy prizes in comparion. The amount of second tier teams the UCL affects is extremelly small is the whole context of professional football teams.
I mean its hard to play in the international dude. Although yes, you could argue that if a team like NAR can be in the international its not THAT absurdly hard.
Also gruesome is spelled gruesome, and I think you meant gruelling anyway.
On May 22 2014 06:20 Sn0_Man wrote: I mean its hard to play in the international dude. Although yes, you could argue that if a team like NAR can be in the international its not THAT absurdly hard.
Also gruesome is spelled gruesome, and I think you meant gruelling anyway.
UCL has the equivalent of Alliance or C9 failing to qualify though. A top team is almost guarateed to play in TI. The main diference is that it also artificially protect poor regions far more than TI. If TI was like UCL we would have Revenge/UG, MVP and Mith or something in the main tournament, but Alliance, Newbee and C9 would be out or something like that (don't mind the teams, replace them with Navi/VG/whathever). Anyway the teams spend a whole year proving they deserve that sport in an objective matter (at least against other teams from their country).
One point that I think is important is how distributing the prize money more affects the growth of the competitive scene. Dota or esports in general doesn't have enough stable organizations to financially support tens of dota teams. If you distribute community funded prize money more evenly to teams, it allows more teams to make a passable living from dota. That equals even more competition for the top spots (because more teams can do it full-time) and ultimately a larger pool of teams because people aren't forced to quit so easily and making a living is easier. More competitive (and I mean actually competitive and not teams that try to play in qualifiers and fail all the time) teams brings higher quality entertainment for the viewers, which I think leads to even more growth in the number of spectators.
I'm not sure who I feel would "deserve" prize money currently, but I think the more important side of this is how the prize money distribution influences the future of dota. In the context of esports and organizations that sometimes barely provide peripherals and travel support, we are talking about quite significant changes in income for a lot of players.
On May 22 2014 04:42 Sn0_Man wrote: Valve should obviously just pay all the top teams a salary because they deserve it for their amazing year, nothing could possibly be wrong with that.
Participation fee is normal in big sporting events. But given the scale of Dota2 and the prominence of The International in the year, the bigger problem is figuring out how to make every other tournament about 4 times larger so we don't have 80% of the professional scene be in one single tournament.
Not everything has to follow another. Making TI so top heavy is hype.. especially TI1, that paved the way for future internationals. I much prefer it this way... there are already many tournaments with larger prize pool nowadays for teams that are not top5 (arbitrary) to compete in.
The problem with paying every team at TI is that unlike traditional sports, TI doesn't have a straightforward, transparent qualification path. Sure, it's Valve's tournament and they're free to give their money to whomever they please, but there are some disgruntled voices about which teams should be invited and which shouldn't already; these voices would be a helluva lot louder if every of the invites got paid. Until there is a selection method for teams to TI that is actually transparent, giving participants anything more than tickets and lodging for losing every single match would be a pretty bad call with all the drama and bad blood it'd create.
On May 22 2014 01:42 Sn0_Man wrote: Regardless, the real argument still isn't "well the bottom teams suck so they don't deserve money" it is "well there should be more to the scene than TI and having TI award every attendee as much money as winning almost any other tournament would award artificially stratifies the scene and turns into valve subsidizing the scene instead of promoting it". Most dota fans do NOT want an LCS situation where "These teams get paid a livable salary by the publisher/developer to play the game and everybody else doesn't" but awarding even 1% of the winnings to each team results in a $60,000+ "sponsorship" to the attending teams.
But isn't it... OUR money that would act as the subsidy? Just because the publisher/developer is acting as the intermediary for the money that's going from us to the teams via the prize pool doesn't make it their money, just as if, colloquially speaking, I pay for a movie ticket with a debit card, it wasn't JP Morgan Chase that subsidized the movie studio but me. So in the case that all 16 teams get a prize, the publisher/developer isn't really paying the players a salary... we are. In fact, Valve can keep its original prize distribution exactly the same, and ours could in theory be completely flat across the teams*. Wouldn't this really be THE COMMUNITY paying the teams a flat (very high) salary to play the game? And would that really be so bad?
I feel that talking about Valve at all in terms of the prize pool is a misdirection of sorts, even if one made in good faith.
* I don't actually support a position this extreme, just illustrating the point.
If we're going to say that it's really the community's money "subsidizing" the teams, can't we say that it's the LoL community that's "subsidizing" the LCS teams? After all, Riot's money comes from the LoL community. It's less direct, sure, but it's the same peoples' money ending up in the same peoples' hands with the same intermediary.
Anyway, yeah, it'd be nice if there were more ways for teams to directly make money from the community. Make the entry barrier to selling team-sponsoring cosmetics lower, for example, or give teams a direct cut of event ticket sales, or something. If you cut all the prizes in a year of DotA in half, and distribute the other half evenly among all competing teams, you probably end up with a significantly larger/more stable professional DotA scene.
Even if you give every team 1% of the prize pool that barely changes the top 4 prizes but makes it so that they atleast aren't losing money by going to TI.
On May 22 2014 16:43 Jutranjo wrote: Even if you give every team 1% of the prize pool that barely changes the top 4 prizes but makes it so that they atleast aren't losing money by going to TI.
They're already not losing money because Valve pays their travel costs and hotels, catering etc.
However I agree with your point in general. The prizepool is so stupidly big this year, that investing all of that money in the few top teams just seems ridiculous to me. The kids (okay, probably young adults) that get first place are basically going to be millionairs whether Valve throws the players that weren't as succesfull a bone or not. It would mean so much more for the losing teams than it would diminish the winning team's euphoria. I want to see either prizes for all the teams or participation fees or i'm not buying a Compendium. Yes, I know Valve's not gonna care
The only valid argument against paying all teams that I've read in this topic is that it puts Valve in the difficult position of essentially deciding what teams they give money to when they decide on the invited teams.
On May 22 2014 17:54 bluzi wrote: Valve does this for the owe factor -> "LOOK AT THE TOP PRIZE MONEY!!! LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY"
Agreed, and I think it makes sense if you just want exposure. Frankly most people who don't already follows the competitive scene also don't care about the overall prizepool, nor how fair it is. In fact I have never seen any mention of prizepool anywhere outside of esports, so IMO for many it has very little meaning. They will be impressed that the winner gets 3 million, not that all the teams together get 6 million.
i dont really know much about economics and the money scene so this suggestion might seem stupid, but what if they set side some of the bonus money from the compendium and had it set up so every game u win the round robin group u get some money, so still teams who come out strong and deserving of good play still get their money, but teams who dont make it the play offs but where super close (just cut out) still make some money, also it would be a nice incentive to not "throw" games for placement spots.
On May 22 2014 02:21 Unleashing wrote: I don't want to just give money to teams that clearly didn't deserve to be there *cough* MUFC *cough*
So all the wins and achievements MUFC had prior to TI, which earned them an invite spot were nothing?
MUFC were amply rewarded for their respective wins in the non-TI tournaments with winnings from said tournaments; it's not for nothing. I don't see the NEED for prize money to be distributed all the way down to the 16th place =/ Teams should be able to survive outside of TI money, just like MUFC has.
Personally I see TI as something akin for a yearly Olympics, except in place of gold medals it's whatever the top prize happens to be that year. Extremely big, but more than the gold medal(prize money) it's the exposure and prestige of participating in the Olympics(TI) which then lead to sponsorship deals and long(er)-term sustainability. Which can be seen every year - when a team without prior sponsorhip manages to qualify for TI they almost immediately start receiving offers and are picked up.
On May 22 2014 02:21 Unleashing wrote: I don't want to just give money to teams that clearly didn't deserve to be there *cough* MUFC *cough* I think paying teams for wins would be sensible so all teams get a bonus of the prizepool for their wins in the group-stages.
I just can not agree with giving money to teams that show up and lose fucking everything, because said team clearly didn't deserve to be in the money any more than let's say the play-in teams. I mean if we want to pay the teams for working hard and making it to seattle then surely we should pay the play-in teams too, right? They need to spend time practicing and so on just as much as the team that makes it trough the play-in and becomes one of the 16 teams. (No i don't actually think play-in teams that don't make it should be paid, i think teams should be rewarded for playing well at TI)
If we paid teams for getting wins in the group stages this rewards teams that play well and actually create entertainment for the viewers, and punishes teams that clearly weren't supposed to be at the event at all. I mean let's say we had a team in the scene that was all legacy and hadn't actually performed at all leading up to TI, and they were giving a direct invite simply because of said legacy. If they show up and lose everything, they definitely wouldn't be deserving of any money just for being there. That would be insulting to teams in the play-in that might've put up a much more serious fight in the tournament but just barely got eliminated.
TI shouldn't be there to allow a player to be competitive, it shouldn't be what the scenes revolves around. It shouldn't be there to make sure all the teams can remain competitive, because that would mean we have a scene that can't survive without TI which would be super fucking bad for the scene as a whole.
That's some of the most absurd and backward logic there is. Simply put if a team is good enough to make it trough the qualifiers, then they deserve to be at the tournament and thus deserve to be payed for it. They have earned the money by qualifying. I agree with what you are saying in that the higher the place the more they should earn, but there should always be a minimum of entry point prize money.
Also, your argument about a team losing all games at a tournament making them undeserving of receiving prize money is absurd as well. The skill difference between teams that get invites and go trough qualifiers, the experience in tournaments, the team cohesion, how they handle pressure are all huge factors. It could be that a team that made it trough the quals just didn't have any live tournament experience and they bombed out, that doesn't mean they don't deserve any money at all, they, again, earned it by getting there in the first place.
Every serious sport out there rewards qualifying for the tournament as well. The only reason why it isn't being done in eSports yet is that the prize pools just weren't there yet. However with the TI4 we have a huge precedent where the prize pool is so massive that it could do a great deal of good for the scene and help stabilize, legitimize and grow it further.
Just like the OP said, you'll never fully mature the scene nor the game if we cling to the antiquated, barbaric and predatory mentality that only the top teams deserve to earn money.
On May 22 2014 16:43 Jutranjo wrote: Even if you give every team 1% of the prize pool that barely changes the top 4 prizes but makes it so that they atleast aren't losing money by going to TI.
They're already not losing money because Valve pays their travel costs and hotels, catering etc.
I'm not sure all the players at TI are fully sponsored. At least some of them have a side job, even Akke has a programming job. It's not just travel expenses, if they're not getting any money they'd earn more by just not going.
I agree with Nazgul, keep it the same. Theres a saying in my planet-, "(if)He dies, he dies." Good luck to all teams
edit: to the post above mine, i highly doubt that. exposure is definately worth the time, its like saying no to a pro* bowl invite because you are going to write some code lines or do a workout routine in your room. (insert nfl CMON MAN moment)
On May 22 2014 22:37 TheRubicon wrote: I agree with Nazgul, keep it the same. Theres a saying in my planet-, "(if)He dies, he dies." Good luck to all teams
edit: to the post above mine, i highly doubt that. exposure is definately worth the time, its like saying no to a pro* bowl invite because you are going to write some code lines or do a workout routine in your room. (insert nfl CMON MAN moment)
Did you read his post properly? He does not have an issue with Valve giving out some prize money to those who place 9-16 due to the nature of how teams qualify for the tournament in the first place.
On May 22 2014 22:37 TheRubicon wrote: I agree with Nazgul, keep it the same. Theres a saying in my planet-, "(if)He dies, he dies." Good luck to all teams
edit: to the post above mine, i highly doubt that. exposure is definately worth the time, its like saying no to a pro* bowl invite because you are going to write some code lines or do a workout routine in your room. (insert nfl CMON MAN moment)
Did you read his post properly? He does not have an issue with Valve giving out some prize money to those who place 9-16 due to the nature of how teams qualify for the tournament in the first place.
alright whatever, i havent slept so i may have misread. if thats the case, disregard my first sentence
I think every team should get a slice of the cake. Giving each team 10-20k from 9-16 spots will barely make a dent in the huge prize pool, but it will give those teams a sense of reward for playing a year long qualification process.
It would be good if valve could just fade away and let other tournaments get all the hype. Even if we removed valve's input, the prize pool would be huge. However we can't expect everybody to throw some bucks to support some tourneys like this everytime as given the saturation no other tourney is able to stand out. One way to solve this could be some ESWC like system : the main organiser (valve here) would give the authority to organise qualifiers to other organisations. It could be starladder TI qualifiers, ACE TI qualifiers or whatever. This would allow to get real qualifiers with proper rewards for qualifying at TI and therefore it would not be a big deal to get a top heavy prize pool. Or maybe a WCS point system, I don't know.
I don't have a precise idea to how things should go but my point is that instead of having many random tournaments we could have tournaments actually meaning something more often and would lead to TI.
On May 23 2014 03:19 nojok wrote: It would be good if valve could just fade away and let other tournaments get all the hype. Even if we removed valve's input, the prize pool would be huge. However we can't expect everybody to throw some bucks to support some tourneys like this everytime as given the saturation no other tourney is able to stand out. One way to solve this could be some ESWC like system : the main organiser (valve here) would give the authority to organise qualifiers to other organisations. It could be starladder TI qualifiers, ACE TI qualifiers or whatever. This would allow to get real qualifiers with proper rewards for qualifying at TI and therefore it would not be a big deal to get a top heavy prize pool. Or maybe a WCS point system, I don't know.
I don't have a precise idea to how things should go but my point is that instead of having many random tournaments we could have tournaments actually meaning something more often and would lead to TI.
Pretty bad idea, they're not telling anyone what the plan is for TI at all. They rarely say anything or take any kind of formal input. That's kinda bad for a big tournament organizer.
On May 22 2014 01:56 Sn0_Man wrote: Definitely agree that every invited team at the international played their asses off to earn an invite and deserve to be there. Na'Vi are probably the closest to a pure "invite" this year.
the team with most tourney wins between TI3 and TI4 is a pure invite ? interesting, would like to see what do you think about newbee
So for a more complete answer, TI4 prize structure becoming less top-heavy would be a huge positive for competitive Dota because it would set a positive example for the entire scene. Having your monetary incentive structures tied so heavily to success directly undermines competitive development, but we continue to return to them almost religiously because we have a fundamental misunderstanding of human motivation.
If you don't want to watch the video, the most important takeaway is this: when you give someone a complicated task and you tie their reward to success, the larger you make the reward the poorer the average performance.
Now I'm not saying that this larger prize pool is going to lead to the collapse of Alliance, Na`Vi and DK, but only because those teams already have it made. Barring a series of complete disasters extending well beyond TI4, they're going to keep their sponsorships for quite some time. They can focus entirely, or at least as close to it as is possible, on improving their game for the event. And good for them.
The problem then is that there will be bubble teams, serious competitors to the top echelons, for whom their continued existence is dependent achieving tournament placements, both to gain/maintain sponsor interest and also to simply gain access to any prize money. If you don't get winnings, maybe you have to convert your part-time job into a full-time job to keep up with rent. So with this hanging over your head, every tiny mistake your teammates make gets exaggerated in performance because they could add up to you not being able to make practices and having your entire competitive career collapse.
As the video says, "The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table." With tier 2 teams getting some form of payment simply for showing up, they can concentrate on playing the game simply for the sake of playing. Their mean performance will improve, and some of them will become serious competitors to the top teams that you would not have otherwise. If you want to make Alliance, Na`Vi, and DK really step up their game, the best way isn't to make the top 3 payments ridiculously higher; it's to encourage the development of their competition to the point where they face a real threat of getting knocked out of the top 3.
The China Qualifiers are currently going on, and we had a small scandal where the "hopeless" teams intentionally threw games. People complain about a lack of "professionalism," but what level of professionalism are you entitled to if you're not willing to pay the "professionals" a single cent. Some people suggested cash incentives for winning, which is a step in the right direction, but it still runs afoul of the issue that those kind of incentives lead to poor performance. Instead, just pay a basic salary just for showing up. If you're willing to pay $100 per win, just pay teams $50 per game played. Then, if teams violate tournament rules by throwing games, have a fine structure in place to claw back some of this salary depending on the severity of the violation. Show up and perform to the best of your ability and you get $90 per person. Goof around and you can lose all of it. Humans are notoriously loss averse, so this payout structure makes sense on both ends.
Of course this isn't a specific recommendation, because every tournament is dealing with a different reality when it comes to talent level, prize money available, and legal implications of the region hosting the tournament. But in general, if you want to improve the overall competitive level of the scene a flatter prize structure at all levels will be tremendously more effective than clinging to winner-take-all structures. This is in all likelihood significantly more important at levels of tournament play below The International, but the International should take this opportunity to lead by good example and ensure everyone who played their ass off all year to make it here is guaranteed to go home with something to show for it.
It is a tournament, not a way to split a stack of money among "deserving" teams.
The whole point of a tournament with a prize pool is that you are rewarded JUST for how you play in the tournament. Take the NFL. Denver had the best record, but Seattle won the Super Bowl. Does that mean we need to give part of the super bowl prize pool to the players who didnt participate in the final games?
Not to mention the direct invites pose a SERIOUS problem. At the end of the day, Valve picks a bunch of teams based on a series of criteria WE DONT EVEN KNOW. What about when Valve revokes a spot because of a roster change? Does that team still deserve a subsidy for being invited in the first place?
Look. I get that this is a lot of money, and people want to help out the professional scene. But if you want to donate to your favorite players, there are ways to do that. But this is a tournament, not a charity event. Why should the winner of TI4 be screwed over and not get 50% like Alliance did just because there is more money? The point of expanding the prize pool through the compendium is that 50% becomes HIGHER, and so forth. Hell, the second place team this year will probably make more money than Alliance did last year for winning, even without reducing the prize split.
I have no problem with making it a flatter payout curve. But if you are going to do that, it needs to be among teams that make it to the knockout rounds and have ACTUALLY EARNED A POSITION IN THIS TOURNAMENT. Just making the group stages isnt enough (see MUFC). It makes no sense to award competition prizes simply because "oh it seems fair."
On May 24 2014 11:29 Two_DoWn wrote: The whole point of a tournament with a prize pool is that you are rewarded JUST for how you play in the tournament. Take the NFL. Denver had the best record, but Seattle won the Super Bowl. Does that mean we need to give part of the super bowl prize pool to the players who didnt participate in the final games?
Except the NFL Salary Cap is currently set to $133 million and teams are required to spend 90% of that on player salaries. I'm not delve further into the world of crazy accounting, but it should be clear that the actual Super Bowl payout is a drop in the bucket compared to base salaries, and the difference in total payout between league worst Houston Texans and the Super Bowl Champions Seattle Seahawks is, relatively speaking, quite small.
Meanwhile in Dota we have a team like Arrow gaming who won the SEA Qualifier and will be coming to Seattle. According to datDota, their winnings since 1-1-2014 is $964, a figure that is echoed on Liquipedia. Maybe they don't make top 8, but if 9-16 paid just $10,000, out of the projected +$7m prize pool, that alone would be 10 times larger than their winnings this year and make it all the more likely we might see a stronger Arrow return to the International in 2015.
And no, "but donations!" is not a valid replacement. If 'E-sports' is now a business then the top 16 teams in the world are professionals and as such are entitled to a salary.
But it's not NFL that pays that salary. You can't pay a salary if you don't own the players, and if you want Valve to contract all professional Dota teams in the world you are opening a whole new can of worms with it's own issue that have little to do with TI's prize structure.
The NFL, as a whole, is a product in the same way that competitive Dota is a product. The specific financial and legal structures they use are not important to us right now compared to the more general principle that guaranteeing a base income to all participants leads to a higher quality product.
In this case, TI having a flatter prize structure that guarantees payments to all participants simulates the benefits of providing a base salary without having to get into the messy details of outright contracting. There are certainly issues that would arise from this such as team invites being somewhat arbitrary (though I'm not seeing any valid complaints about this years invites), teams relocating in order to draw more favorable qualifier groups, and the still steep drop-off between the top 16 and everyone else, but it is better to go forward and address these issues aggressively than it is to use them as an excuse to maintain the current inefficient prize structure.
Regardless, it's ridiculous to bring up the Super Bowl's prize structure when that money is a negligible part of the overall structure of the average player's compensation. If and when team sponsorships become plentiful and the average sponsor is paying over 10 times the International's prize pool, at that point we can treat the prize structure as ceremonial. Until then, we should admit to ourselves that prize winning is a major component of player compensation and divide them accordingly.
So far virtually all TI teams receive a base salary, so the scene already has that covered. I don't know much about Arrow but SEA has a ton of issues that they need to fix and simply paying those 5 guys would hardly do anything to fix the deeper problems it has.
The teams that really suffer from the lack of a base income are the ones that aren't able to play in TI. And paying only the top dogs will create issues similar to what you can see in teams trying to get into LCS.
I still think that only the top 8 teams should get the prize money. This isn't a charity event... It's about survival of the fittest, with the best team taking at least half the money. If your team isn't good enough to make it to the top 8, then too bad. Better luck next year.
Given that teams do not need to pay a single cent during the tournament since it's all expenses paid by Valve, if we want to reward the 9th-16th placed teams, a token sum should be given to them, say, USD$500 per player. Not much to think that they should be satisfied with being placed that low in the tournament, and also motivation to play into top 8 because it's almost exponential increase in prize money just being inside the upper bracket ranking.
A combined sum of USD$2,500 for a team placed inside 9-16th is about the same in prize money for being 1st in a small regional tournament, which I feel is pretty acceptable.
I feel like drawing comparisons to other sports is a pointless argument. Of course, every sport does things differently---but every sport has a different competitive infrastructure, with different needs, pressures, and histories. We might as well be arguing about whether the NBA has a better system than professional tennis. If you look at The International as just a tournament that 16 teams got arbitrarily invited to, then it's reasonable to question paying everyone a share of the prize pool. But that isn't what The International is. The invitations to this tournament are not even close to arbitrary; they are recognitions of prolonged excellence in professional DotA 2, recognitions that involve heavy scrutiny and follow a set of strict guidelines. If the invites to this tournament didn't mean anything, then Valve would not be so insistent that teams make no changes to their rosters. But they are clearly very meaningful, and it is odd that the achievement of getting an invite to TI is not rewarded.
Aside from that, it seems to me that these teams are at TI to put on a show, like a musician at a concert/festival or actors in a play. I'm fine with paying musicians and actors, and so I'm fine with paying the teams at TI, as well.
I think when the first International happened, the bottom 8 made nothing so Valve could have that gigantic one million first place prize. That was enough for Dota 2 and TI to immediately get noticed, which is what Valve wanted to promote the game. Now that it's grown big enough to be able to support more professional organizations, there's no reason they shouldn't. Even if you only gave each of the bottom 8 teams 1% of the prizepool, the players would still each get 10k to be able to continue playing professionally, and then you'd still have over 5 million to pay out the top finishers. Like the OP said, why would you not try when one miraculous upset could net you another 100k?
I think at first it was necessary to make the 1 MIL for first place viable... Because if you had 1 MIL for first place and then had a "normal" distribution, it wasn't going to economically viable for them at the time (who knows; maybe it was and valve just decided not to). But now that the prize pool is a lot higher and the scene a lot bigger, I don't think we need to stick to the same ratios of the past.
There is no such thing as invited teams in NFL or any other leagues or tournaments. All teams advance through qualifiers and regular season. This is a concern for the international. A few teams probably dont deserve the invite. And there is no right or wrong, just the system needs to improve. As for prize pool, you probably leave it to Valve. They know what they are doing. Their format is million times better than Riot.
On May 26 2014 08:14 Bisu-Fan wrote: I think at first it was necessary to make the 1 MIL for first place viable... Because if you had 1 MIL for first place and then had a "normal" distribution, it wasn't going to economically viable for them at the time (who knows; maybe it was and valve just decided not to). But now that the prize pool is a lot higher and the scene a lot bigger, I don't think we need to stick to the same ratios of the past.
Definitely agree. Valve needed to get people excited to play this game with the million dollar prize. But if people can look beyond the confines of a 1 week tournament at the actual ecosystem, we're never going to have another crop of great players enter the system if only the absolute best players get rewarded. If even established teams like arrow have only won <1k, how are amateur players ever going to transition to being pros? I think this short-sighted view really hurt SC2 (and really all esports up until now). We should want pro players to be able to survive even if they are tier 2, and maybe even tier 3 teams should be "allowed" to have a bit of prize money here and there.
With the size of this current TI prizepool, if every single round robin game in the qualifiers was worth something like $500, it would reduce the prizepool by $100k. That is a huge chunk of change, but only a 1% change in the overall prize. This wouldn't really affect the winners in any material way, but could be the difference between every non-TI team disbanding and half of them giving it another shot the next year. This could also have the benefit of less controversy surrounding games at the end of the round robin that matter for one team and not for the other.
I'm not sure how this issue can be discussed in a forum that reaches Valve's ears, but I think it is the most important one for the health of the scene. Whether DK, Alliance, Na'Vi or any other tier 1 team wins TI this year and gets $2 mil or $3 mil won't change their dedication to playing or their ability to survive. Distributing just a few hundred to lower level teams will.
Not playing dota for quite some time anymore, but as a lets say analyst i was finding a proper thread to speak a LITTLE bit about prizepool distribution and other stuff, hope it will make sense (and yes, probably repeating something which was said here before, was not even bother reading, sry).
1) Biggest event ever, even if they cut out some of the prize pool for organization, it would not matter, its obscene anyway. The event could last even longer without a problem. 2) Wanna know the name of the guy who decided there will be just these few teams. Lot of players actually play these games because of the "pro" enviroment (not me ever), they somehow believe they could be at TI5...6...7 whatever. This event should be obviously top32. Players should know, that there is one tournament a year where if they even qualify they will recieve decent money (eventho they finish last). 5) Now you can argue. But there are not enough good teams, they will be destroyed by strong teams anyway, so its not even funny to watch and event will be just a bit longer and results will stay pretty much same with a little bit less money for best ones. Yes, BUT if you believe, that theres enough to qualify just once a year and u earn decent money (lets say 50k for team, which is 0,5% of prizepool, literally nothing) than you would try to go for pro/semipro DOTA2 player maybe (again, doesnt apply to me at ALL). So basically what is happening, they have few good teams which everyone has seen BILLION times and even quite a good players lack motivation to work that hard to be best. Because if they are just sligtly behind TI4 teams, they earn shit by playing a game which is M-A-S-S-I-V-E fail. 4) Prizepool. - Over a 10M usd is MORE than enough to pay everyone participating at least with decent money still leaving off the charts top3 spots. - Current prizepool is total bullshit, sorry but it just does not make any sense. 15-16th team nothing (srsly? u wanna pay 7/8 of the field, but there has to be someone unpaid?). If you wanna pay just the "best ones" than pay top8 or something, just wrong! - Bottom 6 paid teams get pretty much nothing honeslty, there should be at least 0,5-1 for any top 16 team in the world imo. - Obviously the biggest joke is moneyjump on "top8". I mean ye, money jumps are fine, but 10x more? Would fire that employee who made this INSTANTLY. Imagine even the top teams, they are playing for 450k money difference best of three in 9-10 to top8 game. Who the FUCK came with that, jesus. This is more than a really best team can win in other lans in a YEAR. And difference between 6-8 and 5-6? 140k. 6-8 and 4th? 300k. God thatis STILL less than 9-10 to top 8 money jump. Payjumps should be constantly graduating towards top1, which means that biggest payjump is between 1st and 2nd place (at least someting not failed). 46% for the winner in 16 places tournament is discutable, probably too much, but i can understand that 1m/person hype.
Although i dont play dota anymore i wish it (and you guys) the best, mainly because i dont like lol for some reasons, but as long as pro scene will be this much top heavy despite the prizepool it wont happen.
EPT
